


and cup the night sky in your sun-stained hands

by thepaperbones



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drinking, Insomnia, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Smoking, i cannot for the life of me think of any legitimate tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29602050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepaperbones/pseuds/thepaperbones
Summary: Dream wonders what it’d be like, separating George from the context of foggy mornings, dewy grass, and pale orange cigarette smoke. He tries to picture George in the seat next to him in his lecture halls, or flirting with him from across a sticky table in the student-run cafe/bookstore over the fragrant steam of lattes, and fails miserably.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Maia | mxmtoon, Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Comments: 17
Kudos: 113





	and cup the night sky in your sun-stained hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alienu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alienu/gifts), [honeybeb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybeb/gifts).



> the summary: everyone likes that goddamn line for some reason. fuck if i know. anyway i procrastinated this fic like 2230948 times but this was just based off of a "twitter mutuals drop your favorite fic tropes i want to write you things because social anxiety is the only thing that really kind of gets me to write anyway". but yeah college au! i'm like the third fic writer i know who's used campus by vampire weekend for their college fic so i'll also rec take a slice by glass animals for the sake of glass animals fucks (/pos). ty to redn0w on twitter whom i love dearly and also anix fensandmarshes for looking at it kinda last night. blanket permissions apply thanks for reading :]

Dream can’t sleep. It is 4:07 in the goddamn morning and he cannot fall asleep. He has an exam tomorrow and all he can do is pace his room and resist the ever-growing urge to rip out his hair at the roots. He flicks on the fluorescent dorm lighting to watch the bulbs flicker and sputter once or twice, for his own inane amusement.

“Jesus Christ,” mumbles his roommate. Dream stands up abruptly and gives him a sharp look. Sapnap, curled under his floral comforter, squints indignantly at Dream. “Go the fuck to sleep,” he says. 

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to, dude,” Dream says.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one. Go outside to the vending machine and buy yourself some water or something.”

“Water?” Dream laughs. “How the hell is that supposed to help?”

“Fuck if I know, just get the hell out so I can sleep,” Sapnap retorts, albeit with little malice in his voice.

So Dream does, because what other option does he really have? 

He slots in three quarters for a lukewarm bottle of water that is leaking through its plastic cap and listens to it rumble through the vending machine and grind to a halt at the bottom. 

It’s just about then that he looks up and sees the prettiest guy he’s seen in his life. This may or may not be an exaggeration, but those kinds of things tend to become irrelevant in the groggy mysticism of 4 am encounters.

The stranger (who either snuck up on him as silently as possible or merely surprised Dream due to his utter fascination with the shitty plastic buttons on the shitty plastic vending machine) is pretty, to be sure. He’s got lean collar bones that glow in the orange half-light of the streetlamp across the road, and Dream thinks that if he were closer to his face, in the kind of intimate way he shouldn’t really be thinking about, he’d find long, dark feathery lashes and a light smattering of pale freckles. 

In the interest of not coming off like a total and absolute creep, Dream takes his lukewarm water bottle and retreats to a safe distance to watch the stranger light a cigarette, the subtle flame illuminating his face just the slightest, and take a practiced drag of smoke. 

Like a complete and utter idiot, Dream walks back to his dorm in utter silence and pours the contents of his purchase into the bathroom sink. He watches the water drain and thinks about thin, smooth hands flicking the catch on a lighter (and, eventually, those same thin, smooth fingers twining between his own). 

He sleeps through his exam in the morning and can’t find it in himself to care.

Also like a complete and utter idiot, Dream goes back to the vending machine for the next three nights. In his defense, he’s still as sleepless as usual. He’d be lying if he said that the boy he saw wasn’t a pretty big part of his midnight vending machine routine, though. He barely sleeps at all, slogging through his classes during the day in favor of focusing on the thousand and one little scenarios he builds around himself and the mystery boy. 

Sapnap shoulder-checks him sharply in the kitchenette of their dorm. 

“What the hell is up with you?” his roommate asks incredulously. It’s understandable, really - insomnia aside, Dream is usually fastidious and organized (or as much as he can be for a college student) - in sharp contrast, he is currently slumped over a saucepan of cheerios in boiling water with tomato puree slopped haphazardly over them. 

“Nothing,” Dream replies. “Just tired, I guess.”

“Dude,” Sapnap laughs, half-disbelievingly, “you literally tried to plug your laptop charger into the coffeepot to get it to work this morning.” 

And maybe he has a point, but what is Dream supposed to do - _not_ spend all of his time thinking wistfully about a boy he’s exchanged exactly zero words with? 

“Maybe you should take a nap,” Sapnap suggests, just a touch more gently. 

“Maybe I should,” Dream agrees. He passes out on the couch at 5 pm and does not wake up until 6:00 the following morning. 

The fifth night, he walks to the vending machine as usual with a plan. He slots in his four quarters (inflation has wreaked havoc on water bottle prices as of late) and leans against the wall staring into its transparent, rigid depths. Like clockwork, Mysterious Stranger Boy (as Dream has dubbed him) shows up with his pack of cigarettes and smokes in relative silence next to the vending machine. 

“Can I borrow one?” Dream asks. Mysterious Stranger Boy gives him a sharp once-over and his mouth quirks into a half smile around the Marlboro between his lips. 

Dream is not a smoker, but he likes the wispy smoke that curls between them as they slouch against the cinder-block wall of the old humanities building. They exchange no words and maybe it’s better that way.

It’s not until about a week later that Dream thinks to ask for his name. 

“I’m Clay, but you can call me Dream,” he says, proffering the lighter he’d purchased from the campus convenience store. “All my friends do.”

Mysterious Stranger Boy (henceforth neither mysterious nor a stranger) takes it with a lazy smirk and returns, in a surprisingly clear voice, “George.” 

Myste- _George_ , it happens, is a CS student minoring in the humanities (sculpture, to be specific), and is forcibly banished to the vending machine, also by his roommate, for “your cigarettes are setting off the smoke detector and it’s a pain in the ass to call campus maintenance to come and dismantle it every damn time” crimes. Karl, his roommate, is one of those guys everyone sees around campus - Dream vaguely remembers meeting him at a movie night in the quad and musters the hazy impression of an enthusiasm for Cartoon Network and the “Marble Olympics”. 

In return, Dream tells George a little about himself- that he likes listening to One Direction through his Dollar Tree earbuds and making himself pancakes with chocolate chip smiley faces before exam days. He also mentions Sapnap (and Dream’s “stop pacing at 3 in the morning I would like to get some goddamn sleep” exile), as well as his roommate’s affinity for anime and, although he doesn’t talk about it too much, playing the violin. 

The four of them, it turns out, share an interest in Minecraft (unsurprising, given the popularity of Funnie Blocke Gaem). Dream comes close to inviting George back to his dorm room multiple times. He’s prepared to cite working on some new plugin that he wants to tinker with if it’ll mask his growing interest in his vending machine compatriot - and, by extension - the bitten lips Dream lets his eyes linger on. They talk, smoke, and watch joggers pass as the sun rises, slowly but surely, and part ways before the clock hits 6:30. 

Dream wonders what it’d be like, separating George from the context of foggy mornings, dewy grass, and pale orange cigarette smoke. He tries to picture George in the seat next to him in his lecture halls, or flirting with him from across a sticky table in the student-run cafe/bookstore over the fragrant steam of lattes, and fails miserably.

George, it seems, has no issue with this. 

“There’s going to be a party,” he hedges tentatively one morning, in a conversational lull. Dream blinks and, with no small difficulty, tears his eyes away from his friend’s slim, clay-stained fingers. 

“And?” 

“You should come,” George offers. 

Dream’s never been one for parties, but - “Will you be there?” 

George’s smile is reassuring. “Of course I will. But more importantly, so will _she_.”

That’s that - Dream’s effectively sealed his own fate. 

“She?” he asks, and there’s nothing to stop just a hint of terror from creeping into his voice. 

“Maia,” George replies reverently, and Dream’s immediate instincts conflict - terror at the ambiguous identity of this new character collides brilliantly with a fond little lurch of his heart for the sudden sunshine that leaks onto his friend’s face. 

His throat is just a shade too dry to ask for more details before George steers the subject away towards his philosophy of art professor. 

The curiously obscured Maia remains a looming spector throughout the rest of his week, and he tells a wholly unsympathetic Sapnap as much.

“So that’s it? You’re just letting this George guy simp for whoever Maia is without putting up a fight? He doesn’t even know you like him and you’re just going to let him abandon you for this other girl?”

“What else can I do, Sapnap?” Dream argues. “It’s not like he’s about to catch feelings for the stranger he takes smoke breaks with at 4 am.”

Here Sapnap pauses. In a considerably softer voice: “Isn’t it worth it? Just to know whether he feels the same way or not.”

Dream supposes his friend is right. Of fucking course he is. 

And that’s how he and Sapnap find themselves standing in the doorway of a mostly empty frat house, each holding a six-pack of Sierra Nevada beer that weeps half-an-hour-old condensation. As it happens, they’re a little early to the party but just on time for a glowing George to sweep past two arguing Omega Kappa Psis and rope Dream into helping him set up the punch bowl for the night’s activities. Dream, breathless, really has no choice but to follow. He watches Sapnap smile shyly at Karl and makes a note to ask (read: tease) later about the telltale pink flush that finds its way onto his roommate’s face. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” George says.

“Are you now?” returns Dream, a little drolly.

George breezes past his dryness. 

“Yes.”

“I’m glad I’m here too, then,” he smiles. Dream lets the warmth of George’s presence spread and melt him, just for a little. The party bustles around them, growing livelier by the minute. They _let_ it. 

And then things change. The energy of the people around them buzzes and all of a sudden George lights up like a Christmas tree - he’s ecstatic, Dream realizes with a slow sinking sensation.

“Maia,” his friend beams, hand still half-resting on his arm. 

Dream follows his gaze - the enigmatic Maia is, unfortunately for him, gorgeous. 

Her cheekbones appear to radiate the same brand of shimmer that every constellation in the night sky mastered millenia ago, and her eyes are framed neatly by thick, dark, lashes - she’s the kind of Old Hollywood vintage beauty that would’ve been in vogue a half century ago. Dream hates her for it.

“George,” she greets him. George smiles so widely Dream is afraid his face might shatter like glass. 

“Maia,” he returns, maybe a little too enthusiastically, “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“Here I am,” she laughs. “Who’s your friend?”

Dream smiles as politely as possible and does not extend a hand. 

“This is my- this is Dream,” George says, wrapping his arm around Dream, and his touch burns like a brand. 

They make some polite talk about a sculpture and painting project that Dream pointedly tunes out of, and it’s a blessing when Sapnap approaches, Karl in tow. Neither of them seem particularly lucid, which is perfectly fine by him.

“Come play beer pong with us,” Karl says by way of greeting. 

Maia, sensing a sudden necessity for her departure, bids a forlorn George goodbye with a flash of pearly white teeth and waltzes off to go chat up some lanky, fluffy-haired junior (Dream thinks his name might be Wilbur) who is currently queueing a poppy Soundcloud track from his phone at the drinks table. 

“She seems nice,” Dream manages. 

“Maia? Yeah,” George smiles. “She’s pretty cool.” 

He’s not sure exactly what “pretty cool” translates to, but it provokes that faintest twinge of jealousy and that’s enough for him. 

They’d make a pretty couple, Maia and George, his brain thinks. Shut up, he thinks back. Her moonlight dusted fingers, twined with his long, cigarette ash-tinted ones. Shut up, shut up, shut up, he thinks.

As it is, Dream walks over to the beer pong table with George. 

“Here to play?” Sapnap asks. He’s standing next to Karl; the two seem to have become nigh inseparable in the span of half an hour. Dream glances at his hand, resting comfortably on Karl’s far shoulder, and comes to the immediate conclusion that Sapnap will no longer be spending his days pining after anime girls. 

“I’ve never played before,” George says. Dream looks at him. 

“You’ve never played beer pong?” 

“I’m literally a Minecraft player. I wake up and stare at a screen for half my day and mess around with clay for the other half of my day.” 

There’s a joke to be made somewhere about the whole “messing around with clay” bit, but Dream shuts up and takes his ping pong balls anyway. He has neither the brain cells nor the energy for such elaborate witticisms tonight.

“Just watch me. You seem like a quick learner.”

Dream sinks both his shots and is about to ace the third when George’s hand reaches out and brushes his arm. Something in his stupid reptile brain short-circuits and he promptly lobs the ball almost directly at the lawn chair halfway across the backyard. 

“Someone’s jumpy,” snickers Sapnap. Dream cuts him an immediate scowl. 

“Take your two shots, idiot,” George replies fondly, and takes the balls. He lifts the hem of his shirt to dry them off, and Dream’s eyes are immediately drawn to the pale sliver of skin that reveals itself. 

It is at this point that George looks up. 

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” his friend smirks. He feels himself flush pink; it is unsure if that’s because of the alcohol or the fluttering feeling he gets from the quip. Either way, he’s off his game. 

George must be able to see it. He has to - it’s so painfully obvious all of a sudden just how much he likes him. 

“I need to go get some air,” he gasps hastily, and stumbles away from the table like a drowning man. Dream hears his friends’ concerned murmurs and he can’t find room to care, because suddenly his thoughts are flooded with _George_ \- his laugh, the crease of his eyes when he smiles, how utterly fucking perfect he is. How he’s in love with a stardusted stranger who will never look twice at him. George could set him on fire and he’d revel in the burn of it, if only for knowing exactly whose hands caused it. 

George is all the sun’s light wrapped up in a man, and he is in love with someone else. 

He fumbles with the semi-crushed cigarette in his back pocket and makes his way up the stairs to a cramped balcony. Dream can at the very least sit cross-legged on the concrete and smoke with the companionship of no one but a scattering of ashes and the memory of George’s eyes, colored amber by the rising sun. He makes it fifteen minutes before that serenely meditative ambience is broken.

“I thought I might find you here,” George says quietly. He’s holding Dream’s pink lighter, and an embarrassed near-smile plays at thin lips. 

“How’d you guess?”

A pointed look at the still smoldering embers collecting on the balcony floor. “Call it a hunch.”

“Did you need something?” Something ugly lurks in the depths of his words. He hates himself for it.

“You seem tense. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dream snaps; they both fall silent.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he repeats, softer. “It’s okay, George.

George purses his lips. “When did things get so complicated?”  
  


“It’s a complicated world we live in,” he counters. 

“Why can’t it just be simple?”

“I wish things were simple.” He looks George in the eyes. “It would be so easy if we were all straightforward. If we were all open about who we loved, who we hated, who we miss.”

“What?” George shakes his head in disbelief. “Wouldn’t people get hurt that way?”

“They already do. It’s okay. Maia seems to make you really happy.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Maia?”

“Don’t act stupid. I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

“Yeah,” George says. “She’s cool, and I want to ask her to be my-”

“Girlfriend,” Dream finishes sharply. “You’re head over heels in love with Maia and you want her to be your girlfriend? You think about her every second of every day and how pretty she is and how much you love her and you want her to be your _girlfriend_.” His voice is wet, and he doesn’t quite like the way it’s teetering towards paler shades of anger. 

“No! Jesus, no,” George responds. “What? I’m not in love with Maia. She’s a better stone sculptor than anyone else at this university and I want to ask her to be my fucking mentor, for God’s sake.” 

“What?”

“What?”

They stare at each other in relative silence for a tense few moments. 

“Anyways,” his friend continues, “if you’d let me finish, I would’ve told you that Maia’s cool and I admire her and I want her to be my mentor and shit, but I’m only here for you.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Is that the only word you know?” George snarks. “Yeah, idiot, you’re the one I’m head over heels in love with.”

Dream does not trust himself to string together syllables into words, much less sentences. How strange it is that George contains the world’s most incredible paradox - everything perfect contained in someone so purely human - he is so desperately, painfully in love.

George takes the cigarette from his hand; it perches elegantly between his pianist’s fingers. 

“Maia’s cool, but she’s not you,” he says, and takes Dream’s wonderstruck face in his other hand. 

“You’re incredible,” breathes Dream. 

“I know.” They both smile a little at that.

“Can I kiss you?” George asks. There is probably nothing he would like more. 

“Please,” he replies.

He tastes like beer and smoke, and tangerine mornings with the stars gazing down. The sun could explode, probably, and collapse them in its entirety, and Dream would not be able to tear himself away from this moment, from this boy who consumes his soul in all the right ways. 

They hold each other where it all started, with only the million dancing constellations of the night sky to witness their human revels, and they dream of marigold, honey-lit afternoons spent together.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading please check out gen honeybeb my beloved and ali alienu for more super cool poggers fics like this (see: "and these violent delights have violent ends" and "meteor showers", respectively). consider following me on twitter @thepaperbones1 because i post funnies sometimes depending on who you ask and also i ask my mutuals what they wanna read
> 
> edit 3/5/21: we have fanart!!!! thank you so much to @imafrogonalog on twitter :]  
>  ily frog :D <3


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